The Right to Privacy: Volume 17, Part 2

This volume explores questions about privacy that are relevant to ethical philosophy and political theory.

The essays in this volume explore questions about privacy that are relevant to ethical philosophy and political theory, ranging from discussing the role that privacy plays in American constitutional theory to examining the proper extent of access to medical information and the normative status of the right to die.The distinction between the public and private spheres of human life is a critical facet of contemporary moral, political, and legal thought. Much recent scholarship has invoked privacy as an important component of individual autonomy and as something essential to the ability of individuals to lead complete and fulfilling lives. However, the protection of one's privacy can interfere with the ability of others to pursue their own projects and with the capacity of the state to achieve collective goals. Developing an acceptable account of the right to privacy - one that provides satisfactory answers to both theoretical and practical questions - has proven to be a vexing problem. The thirteen essays in this volume examine various aspects of both the right to privacy and the roles that this right plays in moral philosophy, legal theory, and public policy.